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2015-02-24

Karina's Kicked Up Colcannon Recipe

Kicked Up Colcannon

Traditional colcannon is an Irish potato recipe thick with cream and sticks of butter. If served for the Celtic New Year, a bowl of colcannon might include a lucky coin hidden in its pillowy depths; the charmed recipient- if she didn't break a tooth on it- kept the buried treasure for a New Year's worth of kind fortune.

My version of colcannon is anything but traditional. I'm an Ashkenazi-Scot-Irish Polish shiksa zen Jungian humanist by way of the Siberian Ice Maiden, after all (this is how I found out, with a 23andMe DNA test; my maternal haplotype is A8). So you know I had to change it up a bit. It had to be spiked with the flavors I crave.

Flavors that love snuggling up to potatoes.

Because when it comes to this windy, stormy almost-spring-but-not-quite time of year nothing beats a good potato recipe.

It's in my blood. On all sides of my eclectic lineage there is a love of potatoes. And not just a flirtatious fling kinda love. Abiding love. The real deal. The kind of love that conjures the crispy Potato Latke and the tender knish, the golden browned Shepherd's Pie and the bonfire baked jacket potato. The kind of love that is sensible and hands-on practical and pairs the most beloved of tubers with cabbage and onion.

And dreams up a gem like colcannon.

I am blessed on all sides with maternal traditions that share an appetite for potatoes- and simple comfort food.

Karina's Kicked Up Colcannon Recipe

Recipe originally published April 2008.

My favorite comfort foods are those that stir together the soft cloud comfort of potatoes or noodles with bites of spice and heat. And garlic. Always garlic. I didn't even whisper the word light. Or healthy. But my version of colcannon does so happen to be a tad less cholesterol laden than its old school cousin. But don't tell anyone. Just serve it. They'll lick their forks. And reach for seconds.

Ingredients:Fruity extra virgin olive oil, as needed

3 cups of warm cooked potatoes- leftovers work beautifully for this

3/4 cup warm unsweetened milk, or unsweetened non-dairy milk

Sea salt and fresh ground pepper

4 cloves garlic, minced

2 rounded cups thinly shredded cabbage- I used both green and purple cabbage

1 medium carrot, peeled and shredded thin

5 scallions (spring onions), sliced- reserve a few slices for garnish

3/4 cup chopped roasted green chiles- mild or spicy

Instructions:Preheat the oven to 350ºF.

In a large mixing bowl, mash and whip the warm potatoes with the warmed hemp milk until creamy smooth. Drizzle with olive oil, to taste; and season with sea salt and ground pepper. Stir in. Taste test for seasoning. Set aside.

In a skillet, heat a dash of olive oil over medium-high heat and add the garlic. Stir for less than a minute. Add the shredded cabbage, carrots and scallions. Cook and stir for a few minutes- just until the cabbage has wilted and softened a bit, but still tender-crisp. Stir in the green chiles and remove from heat.

Add the cabbage skillet mixture to the smashed potatoes and stir together. Spoon the colcannon into a casserole dish and cover. Bake at 350ºF for 20 to 30 minutes, until piping hot.